The Giver of Stars

I love this book because it has everything, believable, engaging characters, a riveting plot, a vivid setting, and a cause. Larger-than-life Margery O’Hare and lady-like Alice are unlikely friends, but friends they become in this great story.

When I first saw photos of those "librarians on horseback," the wonderful women who responded to Eleanor Roosevelt’s call to take books to the rural poor of Kentucky in the depressed 1930s, I longed to know more. Jojo Moyes gives us lots more. There’s an array of well-drawn characters, but it’s Margery and Alice who drive the story forward, defying the odds to… show more.

In these times of discouraging headlines, this book brings refreshment, full of hope in the face of obstacles.

Readers get a deep dive into the culture of rural Kentucky during the Depression, where even the support of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt couldn’t promise success to a program of women delivering library books to an isolated population. Enemies opposed to a more literate community emerged from within, endangering the traveling librarians and creating the central conflict that kept me turning pages.

In addition to a plot with many twists, I loved the well-developed characters portrayed with humanity and complexity. The problematic… show more.

For an avid reader and writer, what’s not to like about a book about traveling librarians?

I loved the resilient, resourceful, and courageous characters and how they solved their problems with grace and ingenuity, not to mention outright bravery. Based on true events during the Depression in Appalachia, the story brings to life the proud, hardscrabble mountain dwellers and their children with sympathy and understanding.

The traveling librarians, who are the main characters, saved their lives in so many ways, battling ignorance and provincialism.

This was truly an inspiring book.

This is a delightfully easy-on-the-heart book about a small group of women in depression-era Kentucky who deliver library books on packhorses to the backward and sometimes unfriendly residents of a small mining community.

The bonds they make as women, living just outside the bounds of what society wants from them, illuminate the unfairness of what their town has imposed: a young British bride who is disillusioned when her new mining-baron’s-son husband won’t make love to her and finds her attempts at intimacy detestable; a feisty woman who’s in love with a good man, but won’t marry for fear of losing… show more.

Have you ever read a book and thought, I want to be that woman?

I want her courage, her strength, her grit. I promise you that you will feel that way about Margery. A gun-toting Kentucky native, Margery is part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s traveling library “the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky.”

The Giver of Stars follows Margery and Alice—the book’s main character and immigrant from England—along with the other librarians as they not only change the locals’ lives with their book deliveries, but also take on the mining company’s attempt at using dirty methods to acquire more land.

There’s also a… show more.

This story, set in Depression-era Appalachia, depicts the brave women who brought literacy to rural America despite the many natural and human-caused obstacles thrown in their paths. As with a lot of good historical fiction, the strength of The Giver of Stars lies largely on its educational component. I, like many readers, had never heard of the Pack Horse Library Initiative in that period of time, and I found it fascinating. The other key reason I recommend this book is that it, like my novel, emphasizes how critically important friendship can be, especially when women are physically or psychologically threatened… show more.

Books about strong women—and weak women who learn to be strong—have always interested me, so when I heard about this novel based on actual packhorse librarians in Depression Era America, I had to learn about this unusual place in time. Anyone who’s ever had to move to an unfamiliar place will relate to Alice and her challenges of fitting in with people so different from those she’s known. Filled with vivid scenic details, troubled romance, evolving friendships, and ever-lurking danger, this story gave me all of the ”feels” and left me smiling.